Commercialising Security in Europe: Political consequences for peace operations

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This book examines the political consequence of European security commercialization through increased reliance on private military and security companies (PMSCs). There is a widespread awareness of the increasing role of commercial security in the domestic context for relatively uncontroversial purposes such as guarding private property, or securing public spaces such as shopping malls. This book focuses on the implications of commercialization for the peace and reconciliations strategies of European states. This focus is salient, since European states are currently engaged in a number of such external operations and are likely to become so in the future, since they have underlined their wish to focus their security relations in this direction. Reflecting on the consequences of the commercialization for their Peace and Reconciliation Strategies (PRS) is therefore important for those directly affected by these strategies but also for the governments and armed forces of European states and for European publics. The contribution of this book is that it brings together three aspects of politics that are usually dealt with separately when the impact of Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) on peace and reconciliation strategies is discussed: [1] the politics of formulating peace and reconciliation strategies, [2] the politics of implementing them, [3] and the politics of coordinating them internationally. This move is not only desirable because it gives a more complete or complex picture of the political consequences for PRS, it is also necessary because the politics at these three levels are intertwined in reality as professional networks of practice span across the three levels. Hence, bringing them together is the prerequisite of a realistic account of commercialisation. This book will be of much interest to students of private security companies, security studies, global governance, peace and conflict studies, European politics, and IR in general.